Designer

The designer develops the tone and visual direction for the content on a responsive website. Their role is essential in capturing the audience’s attention while allowing the content to drive the purpose of the site. They collaborate with the developer in wireframing and prototyping, and with the communicator in designing content flow. Using the “mobile first” methodology, designers create a web experience that is both functional and visually appealing at all screen sizes.

A few years ago, I was messaging a friend and offered to email him a file, making the assumption he would simply pull it up on his computer when he got home. His response was more jarring to me than it should have been.

“I don’t have a computer.”

The idea that my friend might only get online through his phone did not even occur to me. It should have, because I had already been developing mobile-friendly websites for a little while, but it didn’t. With the evolution of mobile devices and cloud services, more and more people don’t really need a computer on a daily basis.

In case you didn’t see it open http://www.sva.edu in your browser of choice and set the page emulation to your phone of choice (or just drag the edge of your browser to phone width.) Instead of being presented with a standard issue mobile site, we have a helpful pop-up that helpfully points out the helpful menus using helpful arrows. It’s all very helpful.

This addresses a problem often overlooked in the mobile-dev world. Customer: I’m at your site, but … how do I get around? Where is everything? Where are your links and buttons?

(If it was 40% of a person’s frustrations in 2011 it must be 9000% by now, if my math is correct)

At the NYC School of Visual Arts, they simply give you the answer, frustration free, with “View Section” and “View All” … Got it? (They have that covered too.) It wouldn’t have taken any great effort to play around with the site and find out how to navigate, but finding this helpful tip in place was nice; surprising and thoughtful. By dropping this little hint, they can elegantly hide the nav menu and give the site a nice visual kick without all those big clunky nav blocks eating up the screen space. It’s a minor, but impressive little bit of code; a nice little detail. Details count.

**it only works once per session. to see it again, use incognito mode or equivalent.

I recently read an article comparing the comprehension scores of the same content read on a desktop and on an iPhone. Not surprisingly, the comprehension scores from readers using an iPhone were 48% of those using a desktop. The article, written by Jakob Nielsen and can be found here, goes on to explain why readers would have a more difficult time understanding content on a mobile device versus a desktop device. The author also gives some good tips on how to improve comprehension of your content on mobile devices.

In conclusion he states, “complicated content should be rewritten to be shorter, with secondary information deferred to subsidiary pages.” While we often get wrapped up in visual design, I think understandability of content can be just as important.

For many groups on campus, Google Analytics is a great tool to help you tweak your navigation and design. What about using it to show how people are accessing your site from a mobile perspective?

Check out this Google Analytics dashboard that you can add to your account that will help you get a better understanding of what devices are visiting your website.

If you are wondering whether or not it is time to go responsive (the answer is yes you should by the way) then why not let your site analytics answer the question for you. We have built a ready to use google analytics dashboard that lets you see how your site is stacking up across desktop mobile and tablets.

We have evangelized to you about using the “Responsive Web Design” for over two years now. We have done numerous presentations on: “Why Go Mobile”, “How to Go Mobile” and best practices. We have even done some basic training and given you templates to get you started with Responsive Web Design. So now what?

Well, we have one more option which would be beneficial for you. Prepare yourself for some engaging Responsive Web Design Conferences! These are events gather some of the top experts in the field to present on cutting edge topics related to Responsive Web Design and Development. Many of these conferences also have training available, so you gain practical development knowledge. There are a plethora of training opportunities prepared with you in mind. Here are a few options:

All of these conferences have a cost associated with it. For those that need some persuasion tactics for your boss to get one/more of these conferences on the usual tight budget, please see these links: